Fighting bride KO'd by bill

Jim Semlor Photographers Lynne Shepard celebrates her victory Saturday after getting married outside the Columbia Gorge Hotel, which was closed and placed in receivership once the owners fell behind in their loan payments.

Plenty of brides gnashed teeth, sobbed and cried foul in January when the landmark Columbia Gorge Hotel abruptly closed, keeping their wedding deposits.

But just one, Lynne Haaland of Toluca Lake, Calif., fought the distance. She persuaded a judge to order the hotel's court-appointed receiver to allow her wedding ceremony.

On Saturday, Haaland, 40, tied the knot with Aaron Shepard, 37, at the Hood River hotel, becoming Lynne Shepard. By all accounts the wedding and reception on the spectacular spring day were fabulous, fulfilling her dreams.

Michael Lloyd/The OregonianA chain blocks the driveway of the Columbia Gorge Hotel, a Hood River landmark that closed abruptly in January, stranding brides, grooms and others who had paid deposits. The 88-year-old hotel remains in foreclosure proceedings, and parties in the action say they aren't about to permit another wedding there.

Yet now the Shepards, honeymooning on the Oregon coast, are stunned by the receiver's invoice: $17,938.60, including a $6,650 lawyer's bill and a $2,000 "landscape fee." The interim receiver, Gorge Rentals Property Management Inc., defends the charges as appropriate.

The bridal spat mars a perfect wedding that occurred, despite all odds, in a storybook setting. The fact that Shepard managed to hold her wedding at a closed hotel in receivership with a string of creditors testifies to her unparalleled persistence.

It's a determination that continues as the Web designer and her husband fight the bill. No wonder the wedding photographer gave her a pair of pink boxing gloves.

"That girl's a fighter," said photographer Jim Semlor, still reeling from what he considers the hardest professional week of his life. "I've never met a bride so sweet and womanly but so tenacious."

Like many couples, the Shepards reserved well ahead -- last September, in their case -- to marry at the Columbia Gorge Hotel, an 88-year-old Oregon icon.

Lynne Shepard had found the property on the Internet, listed as the world's fifth most beautiful wedding site. She loved the hotel for many reasons, one being its 208-foot waterfall that brought to mind her late father, who traveled the world to see waterfalls.

Lost deposits

The Shepards and numerous others lost their $5,500 deposits when owners Boyd and Halla Graves closed the hotel amid foreclosure proceedings. But the couple continued planning their wedding, inviting guests and believing the lender, ShoreBank Pacific, might find a way to reopen the establishment even without an immediate buyer.

Earlier this month, Lynne Shepard got permission to marry at the hotel from the Graveses, who still hope for a buyer before the foreclosure auction scheduled June 30. She spoke with bank representatives. The couple arrived in Oregon on May 10 to find drizzle and uncertainty.

On May 11, at the request of attorneys, Shepard added $1 million in liability coverage to supplement a $2 million wedding-insurance policy. She canceled a backup reservation at Skamania Lodge and told the caterer to proceed with the food order.

The same day, Hood River lawyer Victor VanKoten filed a motion for Shepard in Hood River Circuit Court asking to intervene in the receivership case. She had deposited $15,000 with Gorge Rentals under terms of a proposed "Agreement to Allow Wedding Ceremony and Reception."

As rain persisted, 75 guests from as far as Argentina prepared to descend on Hood River, staying in nearby condos.

"I was getting nervous," Shepard said. "I was already almost double my budget. But I didn't want to look back every year on my wedding anniversary and say, 'I didn't get it.'"

Circuit Court Judge Paul Crowley held a hearing last Tuesday. "My whole wedding was hanging in his hands," Shepard said. "He nodded. He said OK."

Two days before the wedding, Crowley issued the order authorizing Gorge Rentals to allow the ceremony and reception on the grounds of the closed hotel. Clouds began to break.

At the 11th hour, attorneys required each vendor -- ranging from the wedding planner to the event rental company -- to get special workers-compensation coverage and revise their liability insurance to name the hotel.

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"I was taking legal phone calls at my rehearsal dinner," Shepard said, "and even on the morning of my wedding."

Saturday dawned calm and clear. Shepard's father's best friend walked her down the grassy aisle and gave her away. Husband and wife kissed. Guests cheered. The bride sighed over what she called "the little wedding that could."

No apologies

Then, two days ago, the bill arrived. It included 118.72 hours of Gorge Rentals office and security work at $75 hourly and 19 hours of attorney's fees at $350 an hour.